


A Season in Hell, or Three Summers

by cecilkirk



Category: Panic! at the Disco, Ryden - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Rimbaud, Ryden, Seattle, cape town, myrtle beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-12 21:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5681503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilkirk/pseuds/cecilkirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the middle of summer... <br/>(inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. myrtle beach;  6/24/06

Blurred, blurred, blurred…what was life when it wasn’t crisp?

Senses smoothed around the edges, pictures bleeding together, his own hands feeling a month in front of him—this was his favorite part of touring. Waves demolish each other in the most obnoxious of ways, but he loves it. Coupled with the newly perished sun, it is wonderful.

Sand insinuates its way between his toes. He flings his empty bottle into the sea. A barked laugh escapes from his teeth, and a smile breaks. He is young enough to have an allocation of rebellion.

The horizon is painted haphazardly with fiery colors, but the light is scarce. A beautiful array of colors just for him. What a juxtaposition. What an irony.

White light is just within his periphery, and then “Heeeeeyyy there, Ryan Ross!” Scuffled feet kick the sand unintentionally behind him, and then beside him.

“What’re you doing all by your lonesome over here?” The words drip between his lips and puddle between his toes, drawing out the ease of vowels and sanding down consonants.

Ryan looks and sees Brendon about to put a bottle to his lips. He inhales a laugh that comes out ugly, but genuine.

“What?” Brendon asks. The headlamp smudges horrific, caricature-like shadows on his features.

Ryan takes the bottle and finishes it. A swift blow to the inside of his head tells him it wasn’t as innocuous as he predicted, and his knotted feet can’t support him.

“Whoa whoa whoa there, Ryan Ross.” Brendon offers his hand, but Ryan waves it away and lays flat on his back. The sky is dark but the colors are even more vibrant. His memory quips up:

_Eternity. It is the sea mixed with the sun._

What did he do to deserve this beauty?

Brendon crashes next to him. Ryan hears a laugh down the beach, the kind that is torn from guts and evacuates the lungs but is so deeply refreshing. He hasn’t heard anything similar in…an eternity.

He smiles to himself.

His hands still feel independent, his head still full of fog to the point of bursting, and this is truly where his thoughts brew.

Sea mixed with the sun? Eternity is just where things end and find each other? Shouldn’t it be more…important? Ethereal? Abstract?

Ryan feels the bottle graze his knuckles. He props himself up on his elbows and takes it, peering into the bottom he can’t see.

Shouldn’t this at least be eternity? This thing he knows to be present but invisible? It was an end as well; more importantly, it was closure, tangible, satisfying. Why was it not?

“Heyyyy,” Brendon nearly whispers. “We should get backing be soon. Got a show tomorrow and tonight need sleep.”

Ryan snorts. “Okay, Brendon.”

“Why are you out here?” he asks. “You didn’t answer the first time.”

Ryan opens his mouth, feels the words about to tumble from his mouth, but Brendon cuts him off.

“Ryan Rossss, are you lonely?” There’s a smile in his words, a joviality even more pronounced than when he’s sober. Ryan grins involuntarily, nausea bubbling in his gut.

“Sure,” he offers. He sits up, looking forward. He can barely see the small, residual waves lapping at the sand. But now he can smell the salt, and it’s invigorating.

“Got the tour loneliness bug? Gotta find some people, man.” Brendon puts the headlamp back on and audibly winces at the light.

“Yeah.” It’s all Ryan can say.

He stands and offers a hand to Brendon, who takes it. He yanks Brendon up, having been prepared for more deadweight and his body heaves toward his.

“Ryan Rosssss…” Brendon says before grabbing Ryan’s face and kissing him, making a childishly obvious _mwah_. He smiles widely, brightly, and Ryan feels the nausea tightening his guts.

Darkness, solitude, an abundance of alcohol flooding his veins: there could not be more open doors.

Ryan presses his lips against Brendon’s. He expects to get some sort of facetious remark intoning scandal, some reaction far from serious. But he doesn’t.

Brendon presses back for a moment, two, and more.

Ryan’s hands still feel distant, but he is aware of knuckles grazing and fingertips meeting.

Brendon pulls back. Oxygen fills and floods Ryan’s lungs. He is aware of sweat and alcohol radiating from the face inches in front of his own. He is equally aware of the size of the doorframe.

Ryan’s fingers knot and twist in Brendon’s, gripping them tightly, maybe even too much so. He closes the distance and kisses this time, proactive, gaining a reaction. He can feel the plastic of the headlamp press deeper into his forehead as he kisses Brendon with more deliberation.

He feels the nausea getting worse. The point of tonight was to ameliorate his senses, and now he was undoing all of his hours of work. He can feel himself sobering with anxiety and nerves and worry and just _thinking_ , until—

Brendon angles his head more aligned with Ryan’s and slips his tongue into Ryan’s mouth.

The whirlwind of words are instantly shot down.

He knots his fingers even tighter, feelings his knuckles ache but he doesn’t care; he just wants to be closer. He lets Brendon do as he pleases. He’s just here to be away from feeling anything.

Aching lungs finally make Ryan pull away. He looks at Brendon, whose eyes are sharper now. The light is blinding.

“We need to sleep. Show tomo—”

“Yeah,” Ryan says.

Brendon’s eyes flicker. He turns and walks up the beach, head down to illuminate his path.

It takes Ryan a while for him to find his feet again.

 

 

 

They take a cab, and then another, and then Ryan finds himself in a room with misaligned furniture and ostensibly comfortable sheets. He refuses to remember how he got here.

But he does remember Brendon passing out, and now he is giggling on one of the beds, sprawled out, flat on his back.

“Ryan Rosss…..duuuude….” He put his hands on his face, muffling bouncy giggles.

“Shh,” Ryan says. He doesn’t want to be aware.

“Well, I mean now we’re in a hotel room with a lock that doors, so I mean, you know…”

“ _Brendon_.”

Ryan sits on the edge of the empty bed, rubbing his temples. The dizziness is fading and he can feel his anxiety rising.

“Lonely, lonely Ryan Ross,” Brendon says dreamily.

“Stop,” Ryan barks. He sighs, lets his vocal chords relax. “Just stop.”

“Everyone gets a little lonely on tour, man. No deal big.”

Ryan slips his shoes off with more ease than he wanted. “Yeah, yeah.” A new nausea sits heavy and fiery between his guts, bleeding heat out and taking the air from his lungs as fuel.

“Really,” Brendon says.

“Whatever. Good night, Brendon.” Ryan looks at the clock: just after midnight.

 

 

 

               

Sleep doesn’t come easily. He sobers up much quicker than usual. His senses come alive and his thoughts are beyond his control.

 _Fuck_.

He flicks on the light and goes to the bathroom, flushing his face with water from the sink. As it warms, he feels water trickle out from his eyes, and once it starts—

_Dammit._

He towels his face, but it doesn’t stop. He breathes deeply but it’s ragged in his throat, and the noise only spurs it further.

_Fuck. Fuck._

He clenches his jaw once it starts shaking and kicks the toilet with his bare foot. He sucks in a breath through his teeth and hears it vocalize in the back of his throat, knotting with his tears.

_Stop. Stop._

Every single thing he could ever contrive from the depths of his memory is flooding back—every fear, crushed dream, aching reminder, and he feels all of them without definition, shape—notice.

He slams a flat palm into the door and then punches it. Not enough to do any damage to the wood but he feels pain vibrate his bones, up into his shoulder.

It’s enough for him to stand on and recollect himself.

Swallows, turns out the light, heads back to his bed. Brendon is still passed out on top of the sheets on the opposite bed, snoring slightly.

It is nearly 1:30.

He does not let a thought enter his mind.

 

 

 

 

Ryan must have fallen asleep, because he is awoken by a thud loud enough for him to nearly jump out of his bed.

“ _Shit_ ,” Brendon spits, hissing a breath as he stands up. He flicks on the light and Ryan sees blood slipping toward his cheekbone. It is a dark enough color for the fog behind his eyes to be gone immediately.

“You okay?” Ryan asks, sitting up as Brendon sits back on his bed. He touches his fingers lightly to his hairline. He sees Brendon clench his jaw. “Yeah.”

Ryan steals the toilet paper from the bathroom and gives a wad to Brendon. “Thank you.” His voice is notably different: pitch lower, words clearer. It gives Ryan a feeling of invaded privacy, but perhaps that was from their recent history.

They sit in silence for a moment, two, more. Ryan watches Brendon put the wad on the nightstand and prod his scalp for the cut. Ryan stands and looks for him. “It’s okay now,” he says. His voice feels buried inside his chest and weirdly quiet.

Brendon stands and Ryan takes a small step back. The two meet eyes. Regardless of the pounding headaches and tired eyes, they cannot look away.

It is Brendon who instigates it.

Regardless of the inundation of worry and confusion of sentience in this hour, Ryan doesn’t stop him.

And now, with the crispness of sobriety and isolation of the belated sun, he feels uninhibited. He is very aware of fingertips and lips and tongues and breath, very much so, but he doesn’t think about it, doesn’t let it—

His breath catches in his throat and he pulls away. Brendon’s fingers are nearly icy on his ribs.

The two meet eyes. Ryan wraps his hand around Brendon’s wrist and pulls it out from beneath his shirt. He is overcome with a deep bone-written feeling of…of what? Ephemerality? Casuality? He feels the time is too out of place for any of this to mean anything. He feels six inches beside what his clock envelops. He decides their actions are as unimportant as they feel.

He plunges a hand in Brendon’s pants and another knots his hair. Brendon gasps, eyes widening and looking right into Ryan’s.

Peering into those deep brown eyes, Ryan’s feet and hands feel miles away, and—is this how the cliché ‘drunk on love’ was coined? But no, that wasn’t Ryan’s words, he didn’t—

Ryan doesn’t think about what his right hand does. He continues to look into Brendon’s eyes until he closes them, his head tipping back. “Christ,” he says, voice high and breathy.

Ryan is aware of his palm feeling full and his knuckles against the soft material of boxers. He needs Brendon to open his eyes again, he needs to look in them, to have something to focus on. He must have done something worthwhile because suddenly Brendon is breathing hard and his nails are faintly scratching the nightstand. “ _Ryan_ ,” he says, all on air.

“Shh.” It’s absentminded but purposeful.

Ryan won’t look away but Brendon’s eyes are flittering, closed, open, again, again, again—

“Stop!” Brendon says.

Ryan freezes.

“I’m gonna—”

And he does.

Ryan retrieves his hand and wipes it on his own jeans. A line of sweat slides down Brendon’s cheekbone and into the corner of his mouth. Something in Ryan clicks, and he presses his mouth against Brendon’s. For a moment, only a moment.

Brendon doesn’t respond and Ryan feels his face burn. He steps back and back, until the crooks of his knees meet the mattress.

“Ryan Ross,” Brendon says offhandedly.

In a fit of discomfort, Ryan flicks off the light and climbs back into bed. He lets exhaustion drag him under.

 

 

 

He buoys back to shuffling, then by light.

“We gotta go, man. Come on.”

Ryan’s eyes are heavy-lidded with exhaustion and his head feels fit to burst. He had nothing with him that wasn’t already in his pockets, so he’s ready to leave.

He follows Brendon to the door. Brendon turns to look at him.

“Lonely, lonely Ryan Ross,” he says softly. He pecks Ryan’s cheek, eyes flickering through his own, and then leaves.

Ryan’s palm is aching for a bottle.


	2. Delirium: The Foolish Virgin; The Infernal Bridegroom

Let’s hear now a hell-mate’s confession:

“At present I am at the bottom of the world! O my friends…no, not my friends…Never delirium and tortures like these…How stupid!

“Ah! I suffer, I scream. I really suffer. Yet everything is permitted me, burdened with the contempt of the most contemptible hearts.

“At any rate let me tell my secret, free to repeat it twenty times again,--just as dreary, just as insignificant!

“I am slave to the infernal Bridegroom, the one who was the undoing of the foolish virgins. He is really that very demon. He is not a ghost, he is not a phantom.

“---ah, yes, I was really serious once, and I was not born to be a skeleton!...—He was hardly more than a child. His mysterious delicacies had seduced me. I forgot all my duty to society, to follow him. What a life! Real life is absent. We are not in the world. I go where he goes, I have to.

“He says: ‘I do not like women: love must be reinvented, that’s obvious.’ A secure position is all they’re capable of desiring now.

“Sometimes he speaks in a kind of melting dialect, of death that brings repentance, of all the miserable wretches there must be, of painful toil, of partings that lacerate the heart. In low dives where we’d get drunk, he used to weep for those around us, cattle of misery. He would lift up drunkards in the dark streets. He had the pity of a bad mother for little children.—He would depart with the graces of a little girl going to her catechism.—He pretended to have knowledge of everything, business, art, medicine.—I followed him, I had to!

“I saw the whole setting with which in his mind he surrounded himself: clothing, fabrics, furniture; I lent him arms, another face. I saw everything relating to him as he would have liked to create it for himself. When his mind seemed absent, I followed him, yes I, in strange and complicated actions, very far, good or bad: I was certain of never entering his world. How many hours of the night, beside his dear sleeping body I kept watch, trying to understand why he so longed to escape reality. Never a man had such a wish. I realized,--without any fear for him,--that he could be a serious danger to society. Perhaps he has some secrets for changing life? No, I should say to myself he is only looking for them. In short, his charity is bewitched, and I, its prisoner. No other soul would have enough strength—strength of despair!—to endure it, and to be protected and loved by him. Moreover, I never imagined him with another soul: one sees one’s own Angel, never the Angel of another—I believe. I was in his soul as in a palace they had emptied, so that no one should see so mean a person as oneself: that was all. Alas! I was really dependent on him. But what would he want with my dull, craven life? He was making me no better if he wasn’t driving me to death! Sometimes, chagrined and sad, I said to him: ‘I understand you.’ He would shrug his shoulders.

“Thus my sorrow always renewed, and seeming in my eyes more lost than ever,--as in the eyes of all who might have watched me had I not been condemned to be forgotten by all forever!—I hungered for his kindness more and more. With his kisses and his friendly arms, it was really heaven, a somber heaven into which I entered and where I longed to be left, poor and deaf and dumb and blind. Already it had grown into a habit. I had thought of us as two children, free to wander in the Paradise of sadness. We were congenial to each other. Much moved, we used to work together. But after a profound caress he would say: ‘How queer it will seem to you when I am no longer here—all you have gone through. When you no longer have my arm beneath your head, nor my heart for resting place, nor these lips upon your eyes. For I shall have to go away, very far away, one day. After all I must help others too: it is my duty. Not that it’s very tempting…dear heart…’ Right away I saw myself, with him gone, my senses reeling, hurled into the most horrible darkness: death. I used to make him promise never to leave me. He made it twenty times, that lovers’ promise. It was as vain as when I said to him: ‘I understand you.’

“Alas! He had days when all busy men seemed to him grotesque playthings of delirium; he would laugh long and horribly. Then he would revert to the manners of a young mother, a big sister. If he were less untamed we should be saved! But his tenderness too is deadly. I am his slave.—Ah! I am mad!

“One day, perhaps, he will miraculously disappear; but I must know if he is to ascend into some heaven again, so that I’ll be sure not to miss the assumption of my little lover!”

Queer couple!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Select lines taken verbatim from my copy of "A Season in Hell." Definitely not my own words!


	3. seattle; 8/30/07

All he wanted was to be submerged. He could feel himself buoying.

He was inundating his insides with alcohol and his senses with crowds, and usually this was enough. Usually, his mind was complacent to these forces.

He dared not think why it was tonight because he very well knew the answer.

Looking inside his beer bottle, he can see the bottom clearly. Why—

\--his stomach knots, tighter, tighter—

Why he couldn’t he always see the bottom?

He felt it; he knew. But he didn’t let himself look.

“Happy birthday, man!” Someone claps him on the back, a smile painted wide by alcohol. He mutters a thank you, squeaking through a small grin of his own. He grits his teeth when the person turns.

He was finally legal, finally allowed to do something that was illicit up until today. But what did that matter? What did boundaries matter? They were arbitrary, nothing except the intention to put a frame around something gaseous and limitless in nature. Some people needed borders, lists, boxes in order to function, but he didn’t feel this way. He enjoyed the dearth of structure even more than breaking it. He only yearned to exist without limitations, to know absolutely nothing.

He scratches at the bottle’s label with his thumbnail. Was he pathetic for constantly needing to feel inundated, pressed down, drowning?

Why was this his life? Why not others’?

People are conversing and smiling and filling out the shoulders of their coats; they are freed when uninhibited. People are existing as they should, following their lives linearly. But what was his life? Did he really want to know nothing, to struggle finding his own line? Why couldn’t he bring himself to follow the obvious line? Why did he want to exist next to everyone instead of with them?

He sets the bottle down, fisting sticky paper. Lines pop into his head, something he had read before:

What a life! Real life is absent. We are not in the world. 

It was comfort, a promise, maybe even a wish, and yet only found a home inside his knotted gut.

He did not want to go through life knowing nothing. Everything he had seen up to his life at this present was worn down with normalcy and repetition and the faded color of having been gripped tightly by so many others. He wanted something to identify with, to know.

To cling to.

He pushed fingernails into his palm.

He knew exactly what he had, and where it lived.

 

He filled dozens of minutes with pacing and sitting and pacing and just thinking, assuming only the worst, his thoughts plummeting and scraping cliffs on their way down. A knuckle popped and he suddenly, embarrassingly became aware then that he was wringing his hands.

This wasn’t good, this was bad, this was definitelyverybad—

And then he makes eye contact.

“Ryan?” It’s pulled from his mouth too quickly, too loudly. He crosses to the terminal, knotted feet almost making him crumple.

“Hey, are you okay?” He’s begging for immediacy, almost unable to shove the words into syllables before they gain air.

“What?” Yeah,” Ryan says absentmindedly. He stuffs the paper in his back pocket, not looking at Brendon.

Brendon blinks. “Then why are you here? Why did you come--?”

“I just—I needed to talk to you.” Ryan clenches his jaw, taking a step back and around Brendon to leave.

After a few moments, he’s caught up with Ryan again.

“So nothing happened at the party?” 

Silence for a moment, two. And then: “No. I just—I didn’t want to spend the night there, with those people. It didn’t mean a lot to me.”

Brendon’s face burns at the subtext flooding his ears. Did he really mean--?

He doesn’t allow himself to wade those waters. It won’t do him any good.

 

A cab ride filled with silence, nearly to the point of cracking the windows. He noticed that Ryan kept looking at his feet, out the window, never near him. He pays for the ride, and it’s an act of hope that Ryan will change his mind, that maybe he’ll spare a glance.

He doesn’t.

The restaurant is dimly lit, coloring their silence a dark color, but it’s warm, comfortable enough for Brendon to venture it.

“So what’s it like to be legal?” He offers a smile, but Ryan won’t look at him.

“Fine. Great,” he says, looking at his hands on the table.

Brendon’s jaw clenches.

“You sure you’re okay? What did you want to talk about?”

Ryan flicks his eyes up, and Brendon feels his own burn. His eyes are sad, shallow, completely unfeeling. What on earth was happening in his life?

“Let’s—we’ll talk later,” he says, quickly averting his eyes and rubbing a hand through his hair.

Brendon felt a dense emptiness balloon in his chest. 

 

Does he remember the cab ride?

Does he remember what he ate, or even that they got a picture with a fan? 

Brendon stares at Ryan, looking him over, searching for some subtle clue. What was wrong? Cliches seeped into his mind: Was he dying of a terminal illness? Did someone close to him die? Did he kill a man? 

Ryan kneaded a palm with the opposite hand, staring out the window.

Why did Brendon immediately assume that what was wrong with him had the finality and gravity of death? 

The cab shocks to a stop, ejecting Brendon from his thoughts. Ryan pays for the cab, and Brendon can feel his eyes burning. From what? Frustration? Does he know on some intrinsic level that his consciousness isn’t aware of?

He scoffs, stutter-steps. What the fuck did that even mean?

Ryan glances toward him at the noise, but that’s all. It’s more than nothing. He’ll have to make it be enough.

They have to share a room; Ryan’s sudden appearance throws the booking schedule askew. Ryan firmly plants himself on the far side of a bed, close to the wall. It’s like he’s not even there.

Brendon didn’t know how to react, what to do, so he just acted. He turned on the TV, kicked off his shoes, stretched out on his bed. Maybe breaking the tension would allow Ryan to work toward him.

Ryan doesn’t even look up to the TV.

Maybe not.

Brendon sighs, and this triggers something. The frequency of his frustration matches that of his sadness and desperation and his lips suddenly are no longer acting as barriers.

Brendon sits on the side of his bed, spine erect. “Ryan, please tell me what’s wrong. Why are you here?”

Ryan is sitting flush against the headboard, knees pulled to his chest. He has one arm around his legs, the other in front of his stomach. He doesn’t even blink.

“Ryan. Please.” Brendon can feel his eyes burning. Why won’t he talk about it? Why did he fly across the country for one reason if he wasn’t going to go through with it? Why—

Gears click and whirr. He can’t bring himself to do it.

If he wasn’t going to help himself, Brendon would have to help him.

“You feel confused, don’t you?”

He sees Ryan’s jaw clench.

“And probably a little lost. Maybe this isn’t what you want to do with your life. Or maybe it’s not as good as you thought it’d be.”

A soft, meek warning: “Brendon.”

But he’s not done digging.

“You’re not happy with us. You’re not happy in the band. Even if music is your dream, you don’t think we’ll be the best conduits. You’re looking for someone better, but you have to put up with us.”

“Brendon, stop,” Ryan says, voice squeaking around tears in his throat.

“Are you confused? Is it about the band? Is it someone you can’t stand? A girl?” 

Brendon feels his heart hammer the next words out, ones he thought he had a grip on but no, no---

“Is it me?”

“Brendon, please stop. Please.” Ryan looks over with full eyes and gritted teeth. “Just stop. It’s not—I can’t not stand you. That’s not it.”

Brendon’s hands are on his knees, digging into his jeans. “Then why are you here?”

Ryan swallows, wipes his eyes as surreptitiously as he can. He looks at his feet. “I don’t know.”

Brendon knows it’s a lie. But he has to accept it.

“Are you lonely, Ryan?”

Ryan instantly puts his head in his hands and sucks in a breath that gets caught in his lungs.

Brendon doesn’t know what to think, what to think about Ryan, about himself, all of this, what did it all encompass? when he was digging what was he finding? he didn’t know but god he needed to do something, something—

He sits next to Ryan. He puts a hand around his lower back, finding where Ryan’s fingers were gripping his side. Brendon puts his own on top, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles. Ryan lifts his head up, letting air fill the bottom centimeters of his lungs and releasing it all. He puts his legs flat on the bed, shoving fingers in his hair. 

Brendon feels the manic energy in his veins settle, coagulate, soften. 

They say nothing; Brendon doesn’t have the energy to dig anymore, doesn’t have feet planted firmly enough to feel comfortable in finding that blood dripping between his fingers again.

He looks at Ryan, who grins at something on the TV.

Maybe his feet will find where they belong soon. 

Maybe it won’t be far from where they are at this moment.

Ryan pulls his hand out from beneath Brendon’s, folding them in his lap. Something clicks, accelerates, and Brendon acts before thinking: he puts his hand on Ryan’s waist. 

A moment and two of panic, but—

Ryan rests his head on Brendon’s shoulder, leaning his body against Brendon’s chest. Brendon wraps his arm around Ryan’s stomach, pulling himself closer, tucking his legs away.

He presses a kiss into Ryan’s hair, soft as he can. Something accelerates in him again, but he doesn’t let it happen. He wouldn’t want to ruin this. 

Colors flash across the TV, illuminating the room. The colors bleed onto Ryan’s cheek and nose and chin and ear, only all that Brendon can see. But it’s enough. They complement his features, painting them smooth, inviting, warm, and maybe even familiar. 

He thinks he can feel the arches of his feet being touched, his toes inundated, his heel kicked perfectly back into a slot. Maybe he won’t have to go as far as he thinks to find where he belongs.


	4. Alchemy of the Word

For a long time I boasted of possessing every possible landscape and held in derision the celebrities of modern painting and poetry.

I loved maudlin pictures, the painted panels over doors, stage sets, the back-drops of mountebanks, old inn signs, popular prints; antiquated literature, church Latin, erotic books innocent of all spelling, the novels of our grandfathers, fairytales, children’s storybooks, old operas, inane refrains, and artless rhythms.

I dreamed crusades, unrecorded voyages of discovery, untroubled republics, religious wars stifled, revolutions of customs, the displacements of races and continents: I believed in all marvels.

I invented the color of vowels!— _A_ black, _E_ white, _I_ red, _O_ blue, _U_ green.—I regulated the form and the movement of every consonant, and with instinctive rhythms I prided myself on inventing a poetic language accessible some day to all the senses. I reserved all rights of translation.

At first it was an experiment. I wrote silences, I wrote the night. I recorded the inexpressible. I fixed frenzies in their flight.

Poetic quaintness played a large part in my alchemy of the word.

Then I would explain my magic sophisms with the hallucination of words!

Finally I came to regard as sacred the disorder of my mind. I was idle, full of sluggish fever: I envied the felicity of beasts, caterpillars that represent the innocence of limbo, moles, the sleep of virginity!

My temper soured. In kinds of ballads I said farewell to the world.

I loved the desert, dried orchards, faded shops and tepid drinks. I dragged myself through stinking alleys and, eyes closed, I gave myself to the sun, God of fire.

At last, O happiness, O reason, I brushed from the sky the azure that is darkness, and I lived—gold spark of _pure_ light. Out of joy I took on an expression as clownish and blank as possible.

I became a fabulous opera; I saw that all creatures have a fatality of happiness: action is not life, but only a way of spoiling some force, an enervation. Morality is the weakness of the brain.

Not a single sophistry of madness—madness to be confined—was forgotten: I could recite them all again, I know the system.

I had to travel, divert the spells assembled in my brain. Over the sea, that I loved as though it were to cleanse me of a stain, I saw the comforting cross arise. I had been damned by the rainbow. Happiness was my fatality, my remorse, my worm: my life would always be too enormous to be devoted to strength and to beauty.

That is over. Now I know how to salute beauty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just like chapter 2--not my words! Some of my favorite lines from this part of this poem.


	5. cape town; 6/21/09

Two days.

It wasn’t rare for to stay in one city for two days, but it was rare to have one day without a show.

Because of this, lately Brendon had felt like he was being permitted to enter a world of rarities. Touring was something he struggled to describe uniquely, but he knew it was what he was meant to do. A calm, a peace, a resonance in his bones...it was how he imagined monks must feel.

He was abundantly lucky to be able to tour. To make music that meant so much to him with people he loved—fortune had rained upon him in enough quantity to make him wary of a future drought. Even on days it felt like he was beneath water, he would take it. Better to enjoy being under waves now to better appreciate bleaching bones.

The sweat has dried, seeping back into his pores. It was a gross feeling, completely ubiquitous and enveloping, but so was remembering the show. It was just a matter of hours ago, just a few inches behind his heels, but it felt like months, maybe even years. His voice was sore, but it was the end of the tour, the last show. There was finality, but also—not quite a new beginning, but something else…growth? The betterment of something already in existence? Maybe that was it. Touring was a dream that had been thrust into reality. The novelty had settled, but not to the ground like he had anticipated. It was in his bones, as if his entire frame had been restructured. It finally made him feel harmony with the world.

Exhaustion hammers its way into his eyes, reprimanding him for staying up so late and running on fumes. A warm breeze coasted the air, crawling into his shirt. It was nearly dawn; going to bed now would be like missing a miracle.

Sunrise was something everyone got to experience, but today, it felt unique to him. It was as if the world was congratulating him on finding his purpose. The universe had gone out of his way to construct something beautiful just for him. Beautiful, yes, but also ephemeral. But he could live with bursts of beauty, even if they didn’t last.

Sun crept up the horizon, lightening the shades of night as it ascended. If good things were to end soon, he at least had this morning.

“Brendon?”

He climbs to his feet. His joints are stiff from being still so long, not wanting to break the habit, the routine. “Yeah?”

“Just—just wanted to make sure you were all right.” Ryan’s in his clothes from the show last night, too. “Didn’t know where you were. Been looking for hours.”

Brendon blinks, and his eyes beg him for rest. “Oh, I’m sorry. I hadn’t even considered you’d be looking for me.”

Ryan’s face holds the rising light of the sun, creating shadows and coloring fronts. “It’s okay. Just—yeah, it’s okay.”

“Okay,” Brendon says. He takes a step forward, and then another.

“Were you out here all night?” Ryan asks. His voice is weak, pitched differently, the way it did at the end of tours. Maybe he hadn’t slept yet. Maybe—

“Yeah, I was.”

\--maybe he’d been waiting for him all night.

“Aren’t you tired?” he asks.

He blinks, and fights to reopen his eyes. “Yes.”

Their knuckles are close enough to knock. Ryan’s eyes are deep, flashing, and now, finally, Brendon knows what they mean. He wraps his arms around the thin frame, pressing his face into Ryan’s neck. “Thank you,” he says.

“For what?” Brendon can feel Ryan’s voice against his lips.

He presses a kiss into his neck, his cheek, before pulling back, separating. “Everything. For being you when I can finally be me.”

Ryan’s eyes flitter, but not as quickly or sharply as they used to. He doesn’t need to search and interpret as hard anymore.

He kisses Brendon, and Brendon knows he will never get over the novelty of it. And if he’s as bad at predicting the weather as he hopes he is, maybe he’ll never have to make friends with cacti. Maybe he’ll always be in the water, among the waves.

Brendon takes Ryan’s hand, kissing back, interlocking fingers. He can feel warmth on his back. The sun is almost completely risen, almost completely having vanished the night. But it was just for him. It was short, so ungodly short, but it had existed. He feels Ryan’s palm meet his cheek and he smiles against his lips.

All he knew about weather was that change was imminent, but maybe it would make an exception for him.

 

 

 

 

 

What to do with free time in a foreign city with all the world’s luck in your palms?

Sleep.

For ten hours.

By the time Brendon woke up, the sun was beginning to set. From his hotel bed he saw sharp, jaded colors painted on the wall across the room. Similar to sunrise, but different. An end, a death. Still beautiful. But necessary to keep the world turning. Change, change, change…

He looks at the back in front of him, curved away. The shirt is tangled, leaving it stretched across his spine. Brendon traces the knobs of his vertebrae with his knuckle, bone on bone, feeling indentations that accept him. He moves his hand forward, finding where Ryan’s arms are crossed and knotted and pries a hand free just to hold, just to be selfish. He figures he’s not yet old enough to be denied that.

Ryan pulls his hand free, stirs, stretches. A grin bubbles up from Brendon’s ribs, his chest tight with…something. Adoration. Admiration. Affection. And if he dares poke and prod at this tightness, maybe he’ll find it’s actually—

“What time is it?”

Ryan’s voice is muffled in his pillow.

Brendon sits up, stretching. “I don’t know. Too late to be just waking up, anyway.”

“Mm.” Ryan puts his face in his pillow, and Brendon smiles again. Ryan was existing in small ways, nothing of interest or notoriety, but it was intimate. Life and heart in its very base--the true Ryan, irrevocably and irrefutably. How lucky was he to see this.

“Hey now,” Brendon said, shaking Ryan’s shoulder. “You can’t wake up after the sun sets. You’ll fuck up your whole sleep schedule.”

Ryan sits up, face scrunched in the light and annoyance. Brendon smiles again, absolutely unable to stop himself.

“You’re great,” Brendon says softly.

Ryan’s face melts, the hard edges blurring together as he blushes.

“You really are,” he says, pressing his lips against Ryan’s briefly.

And then they both speak at the same time, and it is jarring enough for the world to stop.

Brendon blinks, once, twice, and more at Ryan’s words.

“No, yeah, let’s go get food,” Ryan says quickly, as if by spitting out these words he can reclaim the ones that he just sent loose. He gets out of bed, shoving his feet into his shoes.

“Hey,” Brendon says. He walks over to Ryan, not saying anything at first. He had never imagined this to be the moment, but it’s here, in his hands, the universe having gone out of its way to create it, and he can’t let it go. He swallows, his chest so impossibly tight it’s almost weighing down the words, but he won’t let it.

“I love you, too.”

Ryan’s mouth opens, shuts. He clenches his jaw and walks out the door.

Brendon’s chest loosens, but he doesn’t know what it means. The moment wasn’t what he had anticipated, but it was there. It existed. It was real, and no one could take that from him. Even if it wasn’t beautiful, it was his. He could live with it.

His throat feels tight. He shuts the door behind him.

He’d have to live with it.

           

 

 

 

 

Nearly home.

Cars and buses and planes had been temporary homes, but they were almost all over with. There was routine in touring, but there was also one at home. More than anything, more than he ever had before, Ryan craved the routine at home.

He felt trapped in his body and wanted to stretch, but the person next to him was a stranger. He knew he could have gotten them to switch with someone he knew, but today he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Right now he preferred the awkwardness of no history than one of shared history.

Nevermind that now, suddenly, apparently, he wasn’t in control of his words. His whole life was based around words—reading and writing and speaking. And now he couldn’t do the last one well at all.

The person next to him snores. They’re in the gray area between morning and night, flying over seas they’ll never touch. Ryan wants to sleep, but he knows he won’t be able to.

He looks down at his hands. They were his, always his of course, but they looked foreign. Or rather, looked like they were covered in something foreign. And as he feared to look around the seats surrounding him, afraid to make eye contact with the wrong person, he knew exactly what stained his skin.

Why had he said it?

And then, a voice: Because you felt it.

He swallows. It was real. It had been real. Not even a full day old before he killed it, because he couldn’t handle it being real.

How did Brendon feel?

Again, the answer: Just like you did.

His stomach knots suddenly, violently, nausea rocketing up to his head, making it hard to keep air in his lungs. He’d started picking away, digging, cutting, and now he needed to find the root of it.

But how did Brendon feel now? Now that he’d taken something from him almost as soon as he’d given it?

He waits, but no voice. Or maybe he just refused to listen.

 

           

The flight ends. They vacate the plane, all heading in the same direction but nowhere near each other. They’re all a cab ride away from their homes, and none are going to the same place.

Ryan realizes it may be the last time he sees two of them, and it’s enough to make him trip over his own feet.

He was throwing away something beautiful, a band that watched him grow, watched _all_ of them grow. He had never felt more at peace with the world and himself than he had touring with these people, and now—now it was done.

Because he’d ended it.

He hesitates once, twice, and more to look at Brendon before finally doing so. His hair is disheveled, clothes dirty and old but full of memories. Full of past, their shared history. Even though he’s not looking back, his eyes are legible: they’re dead. Numb, unfeeling, a wall, indicative of pain.

Pain that he’d inflicted.

Ryan digs his fingernails into the hand that isn’t dragging a suitcase.

He had to learn how to control his words better. But he’d never had this problem before. He’d always had control, always knew how to dig around and bury his feelings if he needed to. And the loss of control, what he felt, what he knew he really felt even if he couldn’t bring himself to name it…

Was it regret that was turning his stomach?

And then: Yes, definitely.

Regretting what? Starting something that wasn’t bound to last forever? At least their music would still physically exist, memories of shows still behind their eyes. It had been real, and great, and that was okay. Nothing lasted forever.

Ryan watches Brendon turn, and it’s not where he’s headed, not the path he needs to get home. Brendon looks back briefly. His eyes are faded, superficial enough for all of Ryan’s prying to bounce back. He spent so long learning to read them, and now it didn’t matter. Brendon wasn’t the same person anymore.

And neither was he.

Ryan turns down another street, hails a cab, begins the final leg of his own journey home. He looks out the window to see darkness sporadically pierced by light. It was unholy, against nature and peace, but normal. It existed; he couldn’t change that.

Did he even really want to?

In the silence, his thoughts flood and tumble through his mind, unintelligible, until:

You know what the regret is.

He clenches his jaw, almost to the point of gritting his teeth. His eyes burn and he tries to swallow away the tightness in his throat, shove away the thoughts, regain control over them, but he can’t. Once he’d let it go, he couldn’t get it back.

He puts his face in his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to breathe deeply.

Now he knew how to salute beauty.

           

             


End file.
